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However, in February 2001, the respected Indonesian newsweekly Tempo published a cover story suggesting links between the bombings and the Indonesian military, the TNI.

The article pointed out that Edi Sugiarto, who was quickly arrested and confessed to assembling 15 of the bombs used in the town of Medan, has long run a car repair shop in the province of Aceh, where a separatist group named GAM has been fighting for many years.

Members of TNI and Indonesia’s special forces, Kopassus, regularly went to his shop for repairs and just to hang out.

As a result, GAM claimed he was a TNI lackey and burned down his shop and house in 1997.

Phone records also indicated that Sugiarto called Fauzi Hasbi seven times before the bombings.

Hasbi is a leader of JI, but Tempo outed him as an Indonesian government mole.

In 2005, two years after Hasbi’s death, the Australian television program SBS Dateline provided additional evidence of Hasbi’s long-time links to the TNI.

Fasbi also called Jacob Tanwijaya, a businessman well connected with the TNI, 35 times.

That businessman in turn talked on the phone to Lt. Col. Iwan Prilianto, a Kopassus special forces intelligence officer, over 70 times. (Source: Kopassus)